The weblog of Norman Geras

September 24, 2011

The feel of light summer rain. That's my experience of this Avocado and Olive Oil triple milled soap from Crabtree and Evelyn. I bought it from their outlet in Rose Crescent in Cambridge. It's a sturdy bar of most appealing fragrance, which I take to be due to the mixture of natural products signalled in its name. But that additional quality I mention - the feel of light summer rain - is its distinctive appeal. You might think that feeling rained on in your bath isn't for you. But you'd be wrong. Try it and see.

It should go without saying that the particular strength of this soap is less evident for those who prefer showering to bathing.

September 23, 2011

I'm grateful to Andrew Sullivan for his discussion of my argument about the respective places of belief, on the one hand, and practice and ritual, on the other, within religion. Andrew is, so to say, an insider in this matter, whereas I am a complete outsider, and so he will have experience and perceptions about it that I lack. All the same, I think we are at cross purposes in a number of ways.

Andrew suggests that I ignore religious doubt. But I don't; I pretty much take it for granted, in fact, that for any major sphere of belief, whether it be religion, politics, philosophy, personal affairs, or whatever, doubt must sometimes feature in most people's thinking, if not in absolutely everyone's. As it happens, in my most recent post I specifically highlighted Frank Skinner's mentioning his own religious doubt, and his observation that this doubt 'is at the centre of being human'.

Second, Andrew speaks of beliefs of a kind that haven't been at the centre of my mind in writing about this question; such as the belief that 'the Blessed Virgin was... transported into the sky rather than dying' - one, I have to confess, I wasn't aware of. However, in questioning the thesis that belief isn't a crucial part of what religion is about, I had in mind more 'mainstream' beliefs, such as the beliefs that there is a God, that this God has certain characteristics and enjoins certain ways of being and doing, the belief in the immortality of the soul, and so forth. Here, just today, I read that a Scottish rugby player, Euan Murray, believes that 'the Bible is the word of God' and he will not play rugby on the Sabbath on that account. Well, is this a belief or not? It is associated with a practice, no question about it: the practice of observing the Sabbath. But how can the bible be the word of God if there is no God or if there is one but He doesn't have any words? How can Euan Murray's practice of not playing rugby on the Sabbath be made sense of if we treat his beliefs as merely marginal or of no consequence?

Most importantly of all, Andrew construes the question at issue between me and those I've criticized on this issue as if I were contesting the importance of practice in the lives of people of faith. But I have never done that. All I contest is the thesis of the unimportance of belief there. For it doesn't have to be either-or, and I maintain, even as an atheist, that it isn't either-or - that both belief and practice can be central in religious observance, and that for millions of believers this is indeed so.

From my reading of Andrew's post I take it that he wouldn't himself necessarily want to quarrel with that, since he writes of religion as an 'interaction between dogma and practice' and also says that 'for faith to live, it must be practised' - which seems to imply a something-there that is to be practised. Coming from an insider's knowledge of what it means to be religious that I myself do not have, I take these thoughts of Andrew's as confirmation of what I've been arguing on this score and as the sign of a measure of agreement between us.

Apropos my last, the Guardian reports that term is starting late this year at Tripoli University:

Staff and new intake alike are preparing for a freshers' week with a difference. "In the circumstances I think we can be forgiven if this term is a bit delayed," says administrator Khalifa Shakreen. "Things are changing so fast."

For the first time in 42 years the university has the chance to be a normal academic institution. "Until now we had the form of a university but not the function," says Sami Khaskusha, a political scientist. "We fed young people garbage. [Muammar] Gaddafi just used this place to boost his cult of personality and bolster the regime. It did nothing for Libyan society."

Omar Tajouri, doing a master's degree in international law, wants better teaching, cleaner administration and, above all, freedom. His ambition - unthinkable just months ago - is to specialise in human rights. "Gaddafi's regime was founded on ignorance," he says. "They were the enemies of education and of students."

Read on for more on 'the signs of change... everywhere'. It's good when wars that are [irony]all about oil[/irony] have some beneficial byproducts of this kind, isn't it?

[P]romoting human rights in thick-skinned countries is not a hopeless cause.

If you read the piece in the Economist from which that statement comes late on, you may begin to wonder. The picture it presents is rather a bleak one. Yet what else is there to do but pursue it, that cause, in every way one realistically and justly can; and, when governments that should do it don't, to try to prevail on them to change course; and to strengthen in every possible way the culture of human rights and the civil society movemements for human rights that seek to improve the world? The alternative might be to forget it, I suppose, but that has nothing to be said for it. (Via.)

I wouldn't mind having a piece of moon rock. I'd keep it on my desk or on a shelf where I would see it often. I'd pick it up from time to time and think, 'Isn't it strange to be holding a bit of the moon in my hand?'

In a column in the Daily Telegraph today Jennifer Lipman argues that the four musicians suspended by the London Philharmonic Orchestra for indicating their LPO affiliation in signing a letter of protest to the Independent have nothing to complain of. They were perfectly free to express their opinion but should not have done so 'wear[ing] their LPO hat'. As I've already made clear here, I disagree. The funny thing is, though, that at the bottom of Lipman's Telegraph column she is identified so:

Jennifer Lipman writes for the 'Jewish Chronicle'

Now, maybe it was done without Lipman's knowledge or permission; or maybe she got the JC's go-ahead for it; or maybe it is policy at that paper to support the suspension of the four LPO musicians. But all this is by the way. The identification of Lipman's professional connection underneath her column is just standard practice in journalism, as it is standard practice for academics (and others) to say who they are when writing to the press by citing the institutions they work in or are in some other way attached to. The identifier at the bottom of this particular column defeats the argument it contains.

[W]e believe that any lasting peace must acknowledge the very real security concerns that Israel faces every single day.

Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel's citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel's children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, look[s] out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile and persecution, and fresh memories of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they are. Those are facts. They cannot be denied.

The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbors. And friends of the Palestinians do them no favors by ignoring this truth, just as friends of Israel must recognize the need to pursue a two-state solution with a secure Israel next to an independent Palestine.

Not the whole story? Certainly not. One side of it, however. And, as it's a side that isn't always articulated clearly amongst segments of the would-be virtuous on this side of the ocean, I thought I might just highlight it here - on my blog.

There's an interesting, and topical, piece by Christopher Hitchens on capital punishment here, with particular reference to its use in the US. Amongst the points that make it interesting is Hitch's acknowledgement of the force of the retributive impulse in people's attitudes to punishment, before he gives moral precedence - rightly - to the primary necessity of not risking executing the innocent.

The link to the Hitchens column comes via Michael Ezra at Harry's Place. Michael also recommends it. However, he finishes with this quotation from Beccaria, which he appears to regard as a clincher:

Is it not absurd, that the laws, which detest and punish homicide, should, in order to prevent murder, publicly commit murder themselves?

The argument contained in that question, so far from being a knockdown one, is poor. As I wrote not long ago, responding to a post of Jack of Kent's, if it worked against capital punishment, it would work against all punishment, since the latter generally inflicts on some putative culprit what it is wrong to do to people who aren't culprits.

The implicit argument Michael endorses through the Beccaria quote might have something like this form: if, in doing X, Alice committed a wrong, then it is also wrong to do X to Alice. But that isn't true for all values of X. Thus: X is the taking from a person of stuff in their physical possession and without their agreement; Alice has done just this to Barry who legitimately owned the relevant items; now someone with the proper moral authority to do so confiscates the items from Alice. In the first case X is theft; in the second it isn't. The background circumstances can make two apparently similar acts morally different.

Killing the guilty (as in legal punishment) doesn't have the identical moral significance that killing the innocent (as in crime) does - though the former is also wrong. Indeed, it is precisely the fact that legalized execution risks sometimes killing the innocent that is one of the most powerful points against it. It is because the guilt of the convicted is essential to the justification of executing him or her that it matters so much that there's a possibility he or she might be innocent. But the fact that legalized execution runs this terrible risk doesn't show that the law must never exact penalties which, when exacted by individuals from one another, would be criminal. (Thanks: E.)

Both the Guardian and the Telegraph this morning report the content of a speech that David Cameron is due to deliver to the UN General Assembly. He is apparently going to say:

You can sign every human rights declaration in the world, but if you stand by and watch people being slaughtered in their own country when you could act, then what are those signatures really worth?

For those not in the grip of the 'all about oil' or 'imperialist arrogance' impulses, the logic of the prime minister's question is transparent. However, it should be noted that something else he is going to say suggests that he and his speechwriters lose sight of that logic themselves. For he will include among the conditions for external intervention to stop people being slaughtered in their own country the stipulations that there must be both UN agreement and regional support for the intervention. Naturally, it is better, other things equal, if these desiderata are met than if they aren't. But if they aren't - because, say, of a veto in the Security Council - and it is indeed slaughter that is either in progress or imminent, then not to intervene will make the very same human rights declarations as Cameron invokes worthless to the victims. The world (and international politics in particular) is more complicated than can be captured in a neat formula. If those human rights declarations have compelling moral force, as they do, they will sometimes be more compelling than the considerations prompting one country's vote.